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iPaloAlto is comprised of community people dedicated to the healthy birth of a valuable new open access fiber to the premise network (FTTP) available to every business, home, school, church, nonprofit, and government building in town. The question: "Why Palo Alto?" and "Why Now?" will be answered by your study of this site; click around, see for yourself.
City Council leadership has been proactive in seeking an acceptable path to citywide FTTP. Mayor Liz Kniss, Vice Mayor Eric Filseth, and council members Tom DuBois, Adrian Fine, Karen Holman, Lydia Kou, Greg Scharff, Greg Tanaka, and Cory Wolbach have all been engaged in a positive and constructive manner.
This project will be called "FiberPaloAlto™" until some other name proves more descriptive.
August 21, 2017. City Council directs staff (passed 6-2) to develop a business case for Fiber to the Node (FTTN). Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to:
Palo Alto Online says, Council backs new vision for fiber network.
October 25, 2016. Google Fiber suspends plans to build new fiber networks in eight metro areas, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The Google metros include San Jose, Portland, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, and Tampa. Palo Alto is in the San Jose Metro. First signs came in August, when Google Fiber installers in San Jose were given the option to transfer elsewhere. Access CEO Craig Barrett is out. Finding sales slow and fiber installations costly, Google plans to explore the possibility of wireless access for the last mile, but it could be years before something new is proposed.
March 11, 2016. Access to utility poles is the next big challenge for Google Fiber in Silicon Valley, the San Jose Mercury reports. Of the five San Jose Metro cities Google Fiber seems interested in serving, Palo Alto and Santa Clara control pole access rights, but San Jose, Sunnyvale and Mountain View do not.
"Google has taken its case to the California Public Utilities Commission seeking the right to use publicly and privately owned utility poles because burying fiber cables is expensive and, in places, impossible," the Mercury reports.
"AT&T and the cable TV association representing Comcast and Time Warner Cable have told state regulators that Google has no such right. And Google contends the Northern California Joint Pole Association, a group that controls many Bay Area utility poles, and includes Google competitors as members, also has been blocking access to the poles.
"'Gaining access in a timely manner bears on Google Fiber's decisions whether to build new networks,' Google lawyer Austin Schlick wrote in a Feb. 5 letter to the utilities commission," the Mercury is saying.
February 22, 2016. "Google Fiber is bringing ultra-fast Internet" to Huntsville, Alabama by partnering with the municipal utility, the Huntsville Times reports.
"We are building the network for our own purposes," Huntsville utility President and CEO Jay Stowe said in an interview. "It's going to have excess fiber that's available for lease, and Google will be the first company to lease that fiber."
"Under the plan, Huntsville Utilities will own the system's fiber backbone, and Google will own the power line-to-home connections, handle all hookups and provide the services.
"This is the first time we are partnering in this way," Google Fiber Expansion Director Jill Szuchmacher said.
An open access muni fiber network model like this has been long sought by Palo Alto.
Might it possible for Google Fiber and the City of Palo Alto to cooperatively work out a similar agreement?
November 30, 2015. Work Plan for Fiber to-the-Premises and Wireless Network and Ongoing Discussions with Google & AT&T, is the title of the City Managers report to Council. Council directed staff to:
September 28, 2015. Palo Alto inches closer to fiber network, WiFi expansion, the Mercury News says. Council treads cautiously on fiber network, Palo Alto Online reports.
Council motion passed 9-0 naming a ubiquitous fiber network the preferred City alternative:
August 20, 2015. Some key upcoming Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP)/Wireless plan dates were discussed during a public FTTP/Wireless Citizen's Advisory Committee meeting.
June 29, 2015. The City Manager updated Palo Alto Council on several initiatives which may lead to an extension of one or more fiber networks into Palo Alto residential neighborhoods. Initiatives include a consultant working on a City Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) Master Plan and a City Wireless Network Plan, both likely to be considered by Council in October. Google Fiber and AT&T GigaPower continue to express interest, as well.
February 2, 2015. Palo Alto council eager to expand citys fiber network, Palo Alto Online is reporting. Council voted to hire a consultant to develop a City Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) Master Plan and a City Wireless Network Plan. The plans may be ready for Council discussion by July. Council clearly would prefer Palo Alto own and control a fiber network serving the community.
Google Fiber announced January 27 that they would be serving 18 Southwestern cities including Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham. No Google decision has yet been made about serving Palo Alto and four other Silicon Valley cities.
What if Palo Alto invested in a fiber network on which Google provided Internet services? Could that be a win-win?
December 19, 2014. Google Fiber needs more time (until early 2015) to decide which of the earlier 34-named cities they will seek to serve. The five Silicon Valley cities on Googles list are San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Palo Alto.
December 1, 2014. Staff-proposed FTTP and Wireless consultant agreement to be discussed by full Council during the February 2, 2015 Council meeting (Agenda Item 11). With a Google Fiber announcement anticipated within 90 days, three members of Council removed this item from the Consent Calendar, effectively postponing Council discussion until February 2015.
October 20, 2014. Another Fiber-to-the-Premise resurrection for Palo Alto?, former Palo Alto Weekly editor Jay Thorwaldson asks in his opinion piece. Two things may be different this time, he is saying; 1) Google Fiber may come to Palo Alto, and 2) the Palo Alto Utility Fiber Fund now has about $20 million cash on hand from dark fiber user fees reserved for communications investment.
August 11, 2014. A Hut Agreement with Google Fiber (as clarified) was agreed to by City Council with its affirmative vote on the Consent Agenda Item 6 with no discussion. The Google-proposed fiber hut, and city-owned land requested for it, is described on Page 3 of the linked staff report. The Hut Agreement completes all items on the Google Fiber Checklist. Now Palo Alto awaits a YES or NO from Google Fiber promised by year-end. Meanwhile, the City will be considering its numerous fiber options, with or without Google.
August 6, 2014. Palo Alto staff updates the Utilities Advisory Commission on City fiber and WiFi developments. One or two consultants are being sought to help staff plan next steps. Request for Proposals (RFPs) are out for help with 1) a City Fiber-to-the-Premise Master Plan and 2) a City Wireless Network Plan. One or more consultants may be selected by October 2014.
On a parallel track, City staff responded to the Google Fiber Checklist by May 1 and, by agreement with Google, staff is working out a model Hut Agreement with them should Palo Alto ultimately be chosen as a Google Fiber city. Google has promised to notify, by the end of 2014, each of their 34 candidate communities whether they have been selected for a potential fiber build out.
April 29, 2014. Palo Alto City Council accepts staff recommendations, with an affirmative vote on Consent Calendar Item 7 with no discussion, to respond to the Google Fiber Checklist by May 1, and to work toward a Hut Agreement.
February 19, 2014. The City of Palo Alto is saying it is on a short list of cities (34) working with Google to explore the possibility of bringing ultra high speed Google Fiber broadband network to the City. Five of the 34 cities on Googles list form the heart of Silicon Valley: Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and San Jose. This Google Fiber site has the complete list.
"Palo Alto competed in Google's initial competition to bring ultra high speed internet to cities," said Palo Alto City Manager James Keene. We are pleased to accept Googles invitation to participate in this new phase of assessing how to bring 1 gigabit fiber to more communities. Our collaboration will complement the open market approach our City Council has directed us to pursue to bring fiber to the premise in Palo Alto. Googles invitation will advance our ability to achieve this goal.
Communities with abundant high-speed Internet grow stronger because theres greater potential to create jobs, drive economic growth, and help students and families get access to essential resources said Kevin Lo, General Manager for Google Fiber. We look forward to working with Palo Alto in the coming months to see if we can build the next chapter of the Internet together, on gigabit speeds.
Palo Alto Online is saying The Mountain View-based Internet search giant has invited 34 cities to work with Google on setting up citywide fiber-optics systems of the very sort that local officials have been coveting for the past two decades. The 34 cities are scattered all over the country and include Portland, Ore.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Atlanta, Ga. "While we'd love to bring Fiber to every one of these cities, it might not work out for everyone," Google's announcement stated. "Cities who have worked with us through this process, however, will have taken a big step forward in making their community ready for construction by any provider."
February 18, 2014. Palo Alto City Manager James Keene names nine to FTTP/Wireless Citizen Advisory Committee. The email read: Congratulations! The City is pleased to confirm your participation in the Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP)/Wireless Citizen Advisory Committee. We anticipate scheduling the first meeting of the committee very soon. Thank you in advance for participating in the important work that will be performed by this committee. FTTP Committee members are Richard Brand, Leona Cook, David Creemer, Bob Harrington, Brad Horak, Andrew Kau, Donald (Donn) Lee, Christine Moe, and Andy Poggio.
October 28, 2013. Palo Alto moves ahead with citywide fiber plan, Palo Alto Online is reporting. City Council voted to commission a master plan for expanding the city's 41-mile dark fiber ring to all parts of Palo Alto, giving residents and businesses Internet speed of more than 100 megabits per second. The council also directed staff to pursue a complementary master plan for a citywide wireless system that would improve public-safety communications, create new smart-grid applications and provide the public with WiFi Internet access. These plans will be paid for from a $15.3 million reserve fund built up by user fees from commercial customers of the fiber network, according to City Staff Report 4203 from City Manager Jim Keene.
May 14, 2013. The new Council Technology and the Connected Community committee began its exploration of FTTP possibilities with renewed optimism. The new committee unanimously authorized City Manager Jim Keene to appoint a group of citizen advisers. The general sentiment among committee members was that this time, things would be different. "There's been dramatic changes that potentially, pending more analysis and study, make it more feasible today than it was three, four or five years ago," Utilities Advisory Commissioner Asher Waldfogel said.
April 3, 2013. The five-year financial forecast for the fiber utility indicates a Fiber Fund growing to $28 million by 2018. This reserve is coming from fiber user fees and is earmarked for fiber-related investments in Palo Alto infrastructure. Utilities Advisory Commission members discussed next steps (see Attachment A), among them working with the new Council fiber committee and the Council Finance Committee which has fiber as an action item on its April 16 agenda.
The four city council members on the newly formed fiber committee are Mayor Greg Scharff, Vice Mayor Nancy Shepherd, Councilmember Larry Kline and Councilmember Liz Kniss, who chairs the committee.
March 18, 2013. "Palo Alto reboots its dream of a fiber network, Palo Alto Online is reporting. Much has changed during the 15 years Palo Alto has operated its successful dark fiber network, including the $15 million now banked in a Fiber Fund earmarked for Palo Alto fiber-related investments, a Fund that is currently growing about $2 million per year.
Council is now asking the Utilities Advisory Commission and city staff to take a fresh look from a broader perspective. "Councilman Pat Burt …said the project should be seen as more than just a utility. 'Fiber to the premise,' he said, 'is also a community service and an economic-development initiative. It could also carry a secondary community benefit of creating free citywide WiFi. He said it's time for the project to return to the utilities commission.'"
February 27, 2013. "Fiber is the key to assuring Palo Alto's long-term position as the Leading Digital City of the Future," Palo Alto Mayor Greg Scharff said during his State of the City address at the headquarters for Tesla Motors.
"A long-term goal would be to provide free high speed Wi-Fi to all our City parks and other areas in our city.
"A Leading Digital City of the Future is a connected city, one that provides services that enable its citizens to get online quickly and efficiently such as fast municipal Wi-Fi and Fiber to the Premises (FTTP). Connectivity is the future and the future for Palo Alto, fiber should be now.
"Two Palo Alto priorities for 2013 are infrastructure and technology. The one area where we can merge these priorities in a game-changing manner is bringing high speed Internet to our homes and businesses.
"In 1996, our city built a 33-mile optical fiber ring routed within Palo Alto to enable better Internet connections. Since then, we have been licensing use of this fiber to businesses. For the past decade, this activity has shown substantial positive cash flow and is currently making in excess of $2 million a year for the city. We now have that money in the bank earmarked for more fiber investments.
"Clearly, the Internet has changed our lives and our community. It has become integral to our very existence and radically altered the way we communicate, learn, conduct business, socialize, shop, and entertain ourselves.
"Since 1996 Google, Yahoo, VMware, Palantir, Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, eBay, Amazon, Skype, and Twitter were founded or went public. Internet users grew in number to over 2 billion worldwide. Our computers are 1000 times faster than those in 1996.
"Yet sadly, the technology and infrastructure medium by which our homes and businesses connect to the Internet, electrons over copper wire, hasn't changed. It is still slow and expensive.
"For the last several years, our city leaders and City staff have discussed bringing ultra high speed Internet to our homes and businesses. Over the years, several plans were developed but not implemented for a variety of reasons. Ultra high speed Internet has been a Palo Alto vision for a very, very long time. Now is the time to fulfill that vision.
"Google has recently deployed high speed Internet in Kansas City. Palo Alto can do better and has all the elements to make this a success.
"In 2013, I believe that Palo Alto needs to develop and initiate a plan to cost-effectively bring Fiber to the Premises (FTTP), which is light over optical fiber, to businesses and homes in our city, offering at least 1-gigabit Internet connection speeds in both directions. Furthermore, fiber's enormous bandwidth compared to copper or wireless media makes it a comparatively future-proof infrastructure that will keep Palo Alto at the forefront of technology for connected cities in the world.
"Fiber to the Premises will satisfy community demand for higher Internet speeds, be cost effective for users, attract startups to Palo Alto, retain existing businesses, and reduce vehicle traffic by increasing telecommuting. It will also provide a backbone for public Wi-Fi infrastructure, improve our emergency preparedness, and position our city firmly in the future.
"Fiber is the key to assuring Palo Alto's long-term position as the Leading Digital City of the Future."
August 1, 2012. "I've seen America's Internet future, it's Kansas City," iPaloAlto editor Bob Harrington is saying. Google Fiber launched in Kansas City July 26. Reviews from MIT and BusinessInsider spotlight the many strengths and few weaknesses of Google's new gigabit network with interest sweeping like wildfire through Kansas City. Bottom line: Google Fiber offers America its only real hope to break the bonds of monopolistic cable and telco company practices and pricing.
June 6, 2012. Discontinue consideration of FTTP for Palo Alto neighborhoods, staff recommends in their 124-page broadband report to the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC). By a 4-3 vote, the UAC accepted the staff recommendation while also concurring with the staff recommendations to continue the dark fiber service model and study investing in municipal wireless. The Palo Alto Unified School District is agreeing to link all 18 of its school sites to Palo Alto Dark Fiber.
June 1, 2011. Possible next fiber steps presented by utilities' staff and two consultants were discussed by the Utilities Advisory Commission. Staff will make next step recommendations to Council in the fall.
May 17, 2011. Google Fiber adds Kansas City, MO (population 460,000) to the Kansas City, KS (population 146,000) award.
But wait, there's more. Google makes it clear in its press release, "We'll continue to talk to other cities about the possibility of bringing Google Fiber to their communities."
Palo Alto is the place to really put Google Fiber to the test.
March 30, 2011. Kansas City, Kansas awarded Google Fiber first. Milo Medin, Vice President, Google Access Services is saying, "…over the coming months, we'll be talking to other interested cities about the possibility of us bringing ultra high-speed broadband to their communities."
March 1, 2011. Palo Alto makes fresh pitch for Google Fiber, Palo Alto Online reports. City Manager Jim Keene keeps up the Palo Alto drum beat which could prove important to Silicon Valley and America.
December 15, 2010. Google delays naming Google Fiber city, appoints Milo Medin vice president, access services, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
December 1, 2010. Report to the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) describing how and why ideas are being sought to develop a broadband business plan for Palo Alto. Palo Alto Online story.
October 21, 2010. Google to build a 1 Gbps fiber test network in the Stanford Campus Residential Leaseholders neighborhood. The Stanford Report; the Stanford Daily story. This Stanford residential neighborhood of 850 faculty and staff homes and condominiums is served by Nixon Elementary School in the Palo Alto Unified School District and is surrounded by the city of Palo Alto. July 18, 2011 Palo Alto Patch update.
Why Google should choose Palo Alto.
Logical next steps: Google expands their 1 Gbps fiber test area to include more of Stanford University and the entire Palo Alto community, thus creating a solid foundation for a world class Silicon Valley open fiber network.
July 13, 2010. Google launches a Fiber for Communities website to serve as a direct link to this game changing Google initiative and related topics. The City of Palo Alto has yet to receive any direct word from Google but today Google donated 350 wireless access points to the Palo Alto Unified School District (a hopeful sign), expanding WiFi coverage to every classroom on every school campus in the district. Students will be able to connect their personal devices to the network.
June 14, 2010. CMR 265:10 updates Council on high-speed broadband. The City is exploring how to best grow its existing dark fiber network. It has heard nothing from Google so far regarding the City response to the Google RFI.
March 26, 2010. Google received nominations for Palo Alto from individuals and groups beginning February 10. iPaloAlto was one of the sites where reports and calls to action on the Google initiative occurred. The City of Palo Alto submitted its impressive response just before nominations closed today. How impressive it all was to Google we hope to learn soon. Google says they 'plan to announce a target community or target communities this year.' Organizations continue to send letters of support to the City as noted in Support – Groups.
March 1, 2010. The Palo Alto planned response to Google (CMR 158:10) will emphasize 'speed and efficiency.' City appoints community volunteer to head public education and grassroots outreach.
February 22, 2010. Council unanimously concurred with the staff recommendation (CMR 147:10) to respond to the Google RFI on their Fiber for Communities initiative and to discontinue work on a federal stimulus bid. Moreover, staff was directed to plan and execute a public outreach campaign to get every computer and hand-held device in town, used by businesses and residents alike, to nominate Palo Alto for Google Open Fiber.
The Google offer of a blazing-fast open fiber network test in selected cities may mean about $50 million of leading edge infrastructure for Palo Alto. A Google Open Fiber partnership with the City capitalizes on Palo Alto's renowned innovative assets, and there are many – residents, businesses, startups, educators, health care professionals, venture capital, professional services, families with students, and volunteers. Among the expected benefits are lower prices, ultra-fast Internet, reliability, and service choices. This is cleantech / greentech which enhances Palo Alto resource conservation and sustainability values. City risk approaches zero. When you study it closely, as I have, deciding to support Google Open Fiber becomes the biggest no-brainer in history.
From now to March 26, click the Google 'Nominate your community' button, this is civic engagement at its finest. A Google account is needed (see sample PDF form for help). On the nomination form 'Get involved: Residents and community groups,' fill in the *required blanks (for help and suggestions, see sample form – for residents/individuals or for community groups).
Palo Alto excited about Google Open fiber: City of Palo Alto press release, Palo Alto Online and Mercury News stories. Palo Alto Online - OpEd: How you can help Palo Alto win Google Open Fiber- Story: Palo Alto to woo Google for fiber network - Letter: Nominate Palo Alto - Palo Alto Weekly: We nominate Palo Alto to Google
February 10, 2010. The Google Game Changer: Fiber for Communities. "Google to offer fast broadband as a trial," the New York Times says. "Google Jolts Telecom Rivals," the Wall Street Journal headlined, as Google announces its plan to build and test open-access ultra high-speed broadband networks in a select number of communities. Apply by March 26 (Seattle will); selectees announced later this year. The Google proposal fits Palo Alto FTTP plans to a 'T.' Tell Google, nominate Palo Alto.
"Silicon Valley at risk", Palo Alto Online reports, "valley losing federal 'mega-investments' race." The news creates a renewed sense of urgency for Palo Alto to provide infrastructure leadership with Google help.
February 1, 2010. With a unanimous 9-0 vote, Council authorized an additional $50,000 for consultant help to prepare an NTIA broadband grant request due March 15, and to complete a business plan later. Staff agreed to return to Council with the grant request plan, which may provide a framework for the broadband business plan, for discussion and direction. Earlier, utility staff provided a broadband update (CMR 119:10). CMR 130:10 requested Council authorization to extend a consultant contract.
January 29, 2010. Palo Alto electric-car maker plans IPO, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Just weeks earlier, Tesla received a $465 million low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. "Tesla's IPO brings with it great challenges," SFGate says.
December 19, 2009. "Facebook significantly expands its Palo Alto footprint in the Stanford Research Park by signing a lease for another 265,000 square feet," the San Jose Business Journal reported. "The buildings at 1050 Page Mill Road had been vacated by the medical diagnostic firm Beckman Coulter Inc. several years ago."
"This marks the second move in a year for the social media company, which left downtown Palo Alto (in May 2009) for a 150,000 square foot building (1601 California Avenue) once owned by Agilent Technologies." (See August 18, 2008 Breaking News)
"Parking woes may be reduced," Palo Alto Online says, while the Daily News headlines "Facebook's status: Getting a new office." Meanwhile, with 400 million members, page views are growing as the new Facebook Connect enjoys success, and Facebook is now selling its own display ads.
November 30, 2009. Palo Alto recommends NTIA broadband grants be made to municipalities in high tech corridors like Silicon Valley. With a grant in the $10 million range, the City's existing fiber ring could be extended to connect more than 20 key anchor institutions in the City including public and private primary and secondary schools, several medical facilities, the JPA's media center, and City emergency and first-responder locations. Each of these locations would receive, at a minimum, 200 Mbps symmetric capacity. With a $45 million grant, Palo Alto would construct a FTTP network to 100% of the businesses and residences in town.
November 4, 2009. iPaloAlto endorsed all five winning City Council candidates who take office in January…Larry Klein, Karen Holman, Gail Price, Nancy Shepherd and Greg Scharff. Each took the time to familiarize themselves with iPaloAlto Broadband Facts and indicated that they SUPPORTED or STRONGLY SUPPORTED the envisioned open-access Fiber to the Premises network for Palo Alto.
August 18, 2009. Tesla Motors is moving its headquarters to 3500 Deer Creek Road, in Palo Alto's Stanford Research Park. The 350,000 square foot 3-building Tesla complex will house 350 employees at first in buildings that have in the past been occupied by Hewlett-Packard and Agilent. "Silicon Valley and the Stanford Research Park are synonymous with innovation and entrepreneurship," Tesla CEO and Product Architect Elon Musk said in a press release. City Manager James Keene told the Palo Alto Weekly the city is "extremely pleased to welcome Tesla in Palo Alto" and noted that the city is committed to promoting sustainability and green technology. "Tesla's move is another indicator that Palo Alto is the place to be for the green tech and alternative energy companies that will help solve the daunting global environmental challenges of the 21st century," Keene said.
July 13, 2009. Council Broadband Study Session (CMR 307:09). Staff updated Council on the progress being made with the broadband grant request ('Federal funds unlikely,' Palo Alto Online headlined) and sounded out Council regarding a wireless component to an open citywide FTTP network. Council seemed cool to the staff idea of building 90 dark fiber nodes into residential neighborhoods. Invest Fiber Fund reserves, Advisors suggested, by building and lighting fiber in the commercial areas of Palo Alto to generate more revenue and thus speed the time when open citywide FTTP could become a reality. Overlaying the entire city with public safety service wireless for police, fire, and emergency response and/or 802.11 WiFi for public use should only be considered if wireless construction and on-going support is funded by grants and/or user fees. A Business Plan was promised by staff in September; Council suggested local experts be solicited to help with the Plan.
April 13, 2009. Council moving ahead with Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) on multiple fronts, Councilmember Klein four-part motion concurring with some staff recommendations in CMR 143:09, Palo Alto Online and The Daily News report. Palo Alto submits comments for broadband stimulus funds to NTIA; the State of California does the same.
March 14, 2009. Axia withdraws from FTTP negotiations, the Palo Alto Daily and Palo Alto Online report. Alternatives will be explored by Council at its April 13 meeting.
February 25, 2009. Palo Alto hopes for fiber network darken, Palo Alto Online reports. The Council Study Session on FTTP provided an overview of City staff negotiations with consortium member Axia NetMedia. They remain apart on financial terms. A possible tax might fund the project, the Mercury reports.
January 15, 2009. Economic crisis stalls Palo Alto fiber project, Palo Alto Online is headlining. Negotiations are ongoing with consortium members, but the pieces still are not fitting within the tight financial requirements laid down by the City. City Manager Jim Keene reports.
On a parallel track, the City is seeking federal stimulus funds for the high priority FTTP project and is beginning to gather a list of project supporters.
December 18, 2008. The Free Press Action Fund released two white papers suggesting action steps to the Obama administration which could be a road map to funding help for FiberPaloAlto™. The white papers: Down Payment on Our Digital Future; 2009 Media & Tech Priorities
October 24, 2008. Palo Alto fiber-optic project right kind of economic development, the Mercury News says. "Council instructed staff to try to reach an agreement (on Letter of Intent with consortium members), negotiations are still in progress."
August 18, 2008. Facebook is moving to Stanford Research Park, 1601 California Avenue, early next year. Downtown Palo Alto "is part of the DNA at Facebook."
August 4, 2008. Council authorized budget to prepare Letter of Intent and final Palo Alto Fiber to the Premise Agreement. See Events.
July 14, 2008. Council fast-tracks fiber on a unanimous vote; staff directed to expedite negotiations with Axia which results in a detailed Letter of Intent for construction and operation of a citywide open-access fiber to the promise network by September 2008. "Council approves ultra-high-speed broadband plan," the Daily says. Click here for more FTTP press coverage.
July 7. 2008. Citywide fiber plan wins fans with no-cash plan, Palo Alto Online headlined. Axia's willingness to sink at least $30 million into building the necessary infrastructure "makes this a real possibility for Palo Alto," Councilmember Kishimoto is saying. Mayoral advisors Bern Beecham, Andy Poggio, and Bob Harrington led Council FTTP Study Session; their presentation.
July 3, 2008. CMR 304:08 accompanied by the Consortium Overview was publicly released today in preparation for Council meeting discussions on Palo Alto Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) July 7 and 14 (Events tab has details). The big news is that an experienced fiber network management company, Axia NetMedia Corporation, is willing to make the investment necessary to build, own and operate the Palo Alto citywide open fiber network, subject to negotiating acceptable agreements with the City (Proposal section has details). "The City dark fiber network may provide the key that unlocks the Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) treasure chest the community has sought for over a decade," said Palo Alto resident Bob Harrington, one of three Mayor-appointed citizens advising on the project. The Consortium recommends negotiations begin promptly; staff seeks direction from Council for next steps.
June 25, 2008. There may be light at the end of the fiber, the Palo Alto Weekly editorial is saying. Fiber Internet finally making headway at City Council, a companion story is saying.
May 5, 2008. Former City Councilman Bern Beecham appointed Advisor to the Mayor – Broadband by Mayor Larry Klein, joining two earlier appointees Andy Poggio and Bob Harrington.
March 19, 2008. Hewlett-Packard considered moving world headquarters out of Palo Alto. Its 2,500 employees are staying for now, but Company leadership doesn't feel Palo Alto has gone out of its way to make it feel welcome. Longer term, overseas threats may outweigh history and tradition going back to its 1938 founding in the HP Garage, as countries pour millions into building up electronic-communications infrastructure, in producing highly educated engineers, and in cultivating corporate executives, an HP official tells the Palo Alto Weekly.
March 11, 2008. DreamWorks' Katzenberg sees 'new era' with 3-D, which will only be available in specially equipped digital theaters and homes with FTTH bandwidth. "It is nothing less than the greatest innovation that has happened for all of us in the movie business since the advent of color 70 years ago," Katzenberg said.
Consumers getting cozy with fiber to the home, a Corning executive tells EE Times, but not the AT&T U-verse offering featuring fiber to the neighborhood (FTTN) with inferior video. Palo Alto staff (CMR 324:07) is calling for AT&T to abide by the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006 by providing equal access and equal video quality to community, government, and educational video channels; so far, AT&T has not responded favorably.
January 17, 2008. The California Broadband Task Force Report makes the same points that iPaloAlto and the community it represents have advocated for the past decade…our state, our region, our city must greatly improve our broadband networks to remain vital and competitive in the twenty-first century.
January 12, 2008. Can the Internet save the planet? InformationWeek asks.The American Consumer Institute answers: Widespread adoption of broadband in the United States alone would cut energy use by the equivalent of 11% of annual oil imports. Overall, the Internet economy could help reduce growth in greenhouse gas output by 67% over the next several years.
December 17, 2007. Staff updates Council on preparation of the Ultra-High-Speed Broadband Plan. During the final phase of preparation, staff anticipates returning to Council to obtain direction on the level and type of contribution the City is willing to make to the project. This should occur during the second quarter of 2008.
November 25, 2007. Globalization is strengthening our Silicon Valley economy, and broadband is at the heart of it, the San Jose Mercury says. Yet, concern is growing as the US slips to 15th in broadband connections: US in the broadband slow lane.
August 29, 2007. "Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it." The Washington Post reports on growing innovation in Japan, South Korea, and much of Europe because of their tremendous speed and cost-of-service advantages over the United States in Internet communications. While U.S. phone and cable companies, which control about 98% of the country's broadband market, oppose virtually every proposal that is not a subsidy for them, the U.S. slips further behind in broadband innovation. Palo Alto and Silicon Valley can ill-afford to sit idly by and permit this to happen.
August 7, 2007. PacketFront acquires DynamicCity. PacketFront, one of the consortium members working cooperatively with Palo Alto staff to develop a business plan for the proposed open-access community fiber network, acquired DynamicCity and merged their operations into the US subsidiary of PacketFront, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. DynamicCity has a long-term agreement to manage the UTOPIA network, the largest open community fiber network in America.
July 12, 2007. Google is back. Google has just leased the 212,000 sq ft former Agilent headquarters building at 395 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto. The building is capable of accommodating about 850 employees. Google, which started in a Stanford dorm room and moved to a Menlo Park garage, first opened a Palo Alto office with eight employees on University Avenue in February 1999. The company quickly outgrew that space and, later that summer, moved to their current Mountain View headquarters campus. As of June 30, 2007, Google employed 13,778 worldwide and is now adding more than 500 new employees each month. Ed. Note: In early 2008 Google changed its mind by deciding to concentrate all employees in or near the Googleplex in Mountain View; the 395 Page Mill Road property was made available for sub-lease.
July 12, 2007. Fiber to the Home drives Telework, home businesses. Thirteen percent of employees work an equivalent of 7 days a month from home; others work from home full time, RVA Market Research says.
July 9, 2007. Preparation of an Open-access Ultra-High-Speed Broadband Business Plan was authorized by the Palo Alto City Council, at its meeting tonight. By a 5-1 vote, Councilmembers directed that plan preparation be a cooperative effort among City staff, advisors, and consortium members.
"World class support from Palo Alto's world class institutions" is needed during this process, staff advisor Bob Harrington said in a memo introducing a summary of the last staff-consortium meeting June 28 prepared by Tim Scott of PacketFront.
June 26, 2007. U.S. Web speeds in the slow lane, California even slower, a San Jose Mercury article says. With the major communications providers to Silicon Valley and the greater Bay Area, Comcast and AT&T, both planning to upgrade their closed networks only to hybrid fiber, the Bay Area may be shackled to slow speed for decades.
June 18, 2007. The Next Step. Preparation of a Business Plan for the proposed citywide open-access Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network is likely to be approved by Palo Alto City Council during their regular July 9, 2007 meeting. Thanks to all who sent emails of FTTH support to Council; your ongoing support is critical to best assure a good outcome for Palo Alto.
May 25, 2007. Norway's largest power utility picks PacketFront for open-access Fiber To The Home (FTTH) network in and around Oslo. This is considered one of the most important contracts of the year in the Norwegian telecom sector. PacketFront is one of the consortium partners in the open-access FTTH proposal to the City of Palo Alto.
May 7, 2007. Silicon Valley is Stuck in the Slow Lane of the Information Highway, a San Jose Mercury editorial says. Disgraceful but true, telecom companies are stifling innovation exactly where innovation is the lifeblood of the economy, Silicon Valley. Customers deserve better; it's time to work toward a better solution.
April 9, 2007. Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto appointed two members from the public, Bob Harrington and Andy Poggio, to serve as advisors to the Mayor as staff follows up on the Broadband proposal.
March 5, 2007. In response to CMR 156:07, the Palo Alto City Council directed staff to negotiate an agreement for a citywide open municipal fiber network exclusively with the 180 Connect consortium.
February 22, 2007. iPaloAlto is reporting that City staff today released the two broadband proposals, one from DynamicCity and the other from 180 Connect, received by the City of Palo Alto January 9th, together with City Manager's Report (CMR) 156:07. The broadband topic will be on the Monday, March 5 City Council agenda for discussion.
January 10, 2007. Palo Alto received two broadband proposals by yesterday's 3 PM Broadband RFP deadline.
Background Information: This second major community effort to get an open fiber optic network working for Palo Alto began with a July 27, 2005 Colleagues' Memo from Councilmembers Kishimoto and Beecham acknowledging the tremendous success of the four-year Community Center FTTH Trial. Responding to an October 24, 2005 CMR 398:05, and later CMR 111:06, the City developed a wish-list and some preferred guidelines with Council discussion of a January 17, 2006 motion. The motion passed 5-1 and formed part of the Broadband Request for Proposal (RFP) issued September 27, 2006.
Based on the wish list, FiberPaloAlto™ would prefer to employ an open fiber optic network strategy, since the economies of scale make an open fiber network and every service offered on it, very competitive – high reliability and security, faster and higher quality services, each at lower prices. A visit to the MSTAR site, a triple play service provider (telephone, video, and data) on both the iProvo and UTOPIA open fiber networks in Utah, will provide a pretty close approximation of the types of offerings FiberPaloAlto™ is expected to provide early in its existence.
FiberPaloAlto™ will unleash innovation, as Mark Heyer's Community Benefits white paper outlined years ago. Palo Alto citizens are known for their intelligence and creativity. It will keep us competitive with other communities around the globe where open fiber networks are already the norm. It will help us maintain our leadership position in Silicon Valley, the most innovative region on the planet. And we keep more of our money home.
FiberPaloAlto™ is an investment that will be made by private business, yet the City earns an option to purchase the entire network and its ongoing business years from now for $1 by granting "rights to use" specific City dark fiber assets now. What a tremendous community asset both now and in the future. Just as the rest of our community-owned utilities have proven to be excellent investments for over 100 years, FiberPaloAlto™ will be the same. It will enhance libraries public safety, medical care; get traffic off our streets, on to fiber.
Best of all, FiberPaloAlto™ is a community builder; see for your_self by exploring this Västerås, Sweden site, become inspired. Palo Alto will have the opportunity to own FiberPaloAlto™ somewhere down the line. We can strengthen our own community, neighborhood by neighborhood – by taking two easy steps:
1. City Council action steps you may encourage:
2. Insist on superior services with more competition which lower prices for:
Contact us for more information. Come back often to visit as the FiberPaloAlto™ story unfolds.
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Steven Rattner: 'We Need Death Panels'; Will PolitiFact Reverse 'Lie of the Year' Tag on Palin?
For those who want the short answer to the question in this post's title, the answer is almost definitely "no." But in a New York Times op-ed piece in mid-September, former Obama "car czar" Steven Rattner effectively said that the so-called "fact-check" site known as PolitiFact should make amends to former Alaska Governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
In December 2009, PolitiFact's Angie Drobnic Holan outrageously characterized the following statement made by Palin in an August 2009 Facebook post as its "Lie of the Year" (bold is mine):
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
What follows are several paragraphs from Rattner's Times September 16 op-ed. Rattner understates the real-world power of ObamaCare's Independent Advisory Board, which makes his citation of England's version of death panels as something worthy of imitation a de facto admission (to the point where it doesn't matter whether he himself admits it) that Palin is right about ObamaCare as it was proposed (at the time of her Facebook post) and ultimately enacted (bolds are mine):
WE need death panels.
Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.
But in the pantheon of toxic issues — the famous "third rails" of American politics — none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical.
Most notably, President Obama's estimable Affordable Care Act regrettably includes severe restrictions on any reduction in Medicare services or increase in fees to beneficiaries. In 2009, Sarah Palin's rant about death panels even forced elimination from the bill of a provision to offer end-of-life consultations.
Now, three years on, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Paul D. Ryan, has offered his latest ambitious plan for addressing the Medicare problem. But like Mr. Obama's, it holds limited promise for containing the program's escalating costs within sensible boundaries.
… Mr. Obama's hopes for sustained cost containment are pinned on a to-be-determined mix of squeezing reimbursements, embracing a selection of the creative ideas that have spewed forth from health care policy wonks and scouring the globe for innovations.
To Mr. Obama's credit, his plan has more teeth than Mr. Ryan's; if his Independent Payment Advisory Board comes up with savings, Congress must accept either them or vote for an equivalent package. The problem is, the advisory board can't propose reducing benefits (a k a rationing) or raising fees (another form of rationing), without which the spending target looms impossibly large.
… No one wants to lose an aging parent. And with price out of the equation, it's natural for patients and their families to try every treatment, regardless of expense or efficacy. But that imposes an enormous societal cost that few other nations have been willing to bear. Many countries whose health care systems are regularly extolled — including Canada, Australia and New Zealand — have systems for rationing care.
Take Britain, which provides universal coverage with spending at proportionately almost half of American levels. Its National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence uses a complex quality-adjusted life year system to put an explicit value (up to about $48,000 per year) on a treatment's ability to extend life.
In my view, if all Rattner could come up with as an example of "restrictions on care" is the end-of-life consultation controversy — where cost wasn't the issue as much as the nature of such "consultations" — then there really aren't any meaningful "restrictions or reductions in Medicare services" per se in ObamaCare. The real restrictions occur when someone in the trenches has to decide within a fixed budget who gets care and who doesn't.
Enter the Independent Payment Advisory Board. ObamaCare deliberately insulated it from normal Congressional oversight and approval (its word is law unless Congress acts; IPAB shouldn't be able act unless Congress approves its budget and priorities). By dictating overall spending levels, IPAB will restrict care without knowing who they're doing it to, leaving the dirty work of deciding exactly who should and shouldn't receive care to hospitals and other medical providers. Consider it death panel outsourcing. You can rest assured that providers will get the latest and greatest advice from the likes of "Zeke the Bleak" Emanuel and others with a utilitarian view of humanity on implementing "quality-adjusted life year system" and other schemes to decide who is unworthy of medical attention up to and including continued life.
Rattner has only admitted what anyone who has studied the situation already knows: ObamaCare will lead to rationing, which will lead to life-death decisions being made outside of patients' and their families' control. PolitiFact's Halon was and is wrong. Palin was and remains right. Halon and PolitiFact should own up to their error. It's an extremely safe bet that they won't. Leftists rarely do.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

subset: commoncrawl


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RockWall Medium 6 in. x 7.75 in. x 7 in. Palomino Concrete Retaining Wall Block (96 Pcs. / 31 Face ft. / Pallet)
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Thesprotia with its particular geographic position, the anaglyph and the safe quays in its many natural gulfs led in the 14th century to the transfer of many Mycenaeans to the area and establishing of fortified facilities.
In the 4th century B.C. Thesprotians create fully organized cities such as Elea and Gitani. The history of the area can be seen from the ruins of cities, settlements, towers, castles, monasteries, churches and many archeological findings. During the 15th century Thesprotia is under Ottoman occupation. The constant fights for liberation from the Turks peaked with the resistance of Souliotes against Ali Passa of Ioannina and Kougkio holocaust. Nowadays Thesprotia is the main marine entrance to the country from West Europe.
Its role is upgraded due to the operation of the new port and the finishing of Egnatia Road. Both projects make Igoumenitsa, capital of Thesprotia prefecture, one of the most important transport centers in Europe.
One of the most mountainous areas in Thesprotia is Souli community. Its historic elements are still vivid with Kiafa castle dominating in the area. Kougki, place of sacrifice of monk Samouil, wells that the inhabitants used for supplying the village with water, the path that leads to Acherontas springs, Aghios Dimitrios church and "Skala tis Tzavelenas" the pathway of Souliotes.
The district of Souli consists of Souli, Avarikos, Kiafa and Samoniva, all together also called Tetrachori. After years the district expanded to the surrounding villages of Tsakouri, Petrachi, Vilia, Alpochori, Kontatais, Gkanola and Tsifliki which formed Eftachori location. This area was inhabited by Souliotes. Souliotes did not approve Turkish occupation in the area and were their relentless enemies. Ali Passa made three countermarches against Souli and the first one was in 1792. The last one began in 1800 and lasted 3 whole years. On the 15th of December 1803 Souliotes surrendered after agreement with Ali Passa.
Visitgreece.gr is the official tourism web site for Greece, run by the Greek National Tourism Organisation, where you'll find information on the main tourist destinations, such as cities, beaches, as well as activities, events and much more!
All content included on this site consists intellectual property of GNTO and you are not allowed to reproduce the whole or part of this work in any way.
For information please contact: email@example.com. All Rights Reserved. GNTO © 2020.


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WebAdvisor is the web interface that allows students to access information contained in Southwestern's administrative database. Through WebAdvisor, students are able to register for classes; view information such as course schedules, grades and unofficial transcripts; and submit address updates, change Student Directory Listing preferences, purchase parking and submit payments.
Current Students may find details regarding WebAdvisor (FAQs, guides, etc.) on the MySWLAW portal (log-in required).


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- This event has passed.
Power Up K9! Flyball and Competition Obedience
July 29 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 6:00pm on Wednesday, repeating indefinitely
Intro to FLYBALL
Looking for something fun to do with your favorite four-legged friend? Come play with us! Flyball is a fast-paced, tennis ball relay race for dogs. Each dog sprints over four jumps to catch a tennis ball released from a spring-loaded flyball box and then races back over the four jumps so the next dog can go.
Learn More at PawsInk.com.


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If steve wynn's gay alter ego didn't point it out, odds are almost nobody would ever notice. In fact, even with him pointing it out, it takes a minute to figure out what Roger Thomas is talking about. There's a small oval window about 15 feet above the corridor that connects the casino to the shopping arcade at Wynn's new $2.3 billion resort, Encore, and it is framed by white clamshell-lined molding. It's hard to see, perched as it is behind a colorful five-foot-tall pineapple-shaped chandelier, so its very existence would seem to be unremarkable.
Thomas, however, looked at the window in the drawings at some point during the property's design and found it lacking. On his desk at the time were samples of various leaf shapes, which in turn inspired the decision to crown that somewhat obscure window with shimmering gold laurel branches. "It was just sort of a natural," Thomas shrugs.
And yet anyone even vaguely familiar with what Las Vegas has historically been about knows there is nothing natural about such an effort in a city cluttered with fakery and replicas of world landmarks, at least not until the billionaire whose name is emblazoned everywhere set Thomas loose, first at Bellagio in 1998, then at the elegantly unthemed Wynn Las Vegas in 2005, and now the latter's five-month-old sister, Encore.
"It's all Roger's design," Wynn says. "Whatever his sensibility is, whatever ends up in those sketchbooks of his that he always carries with him, wherever that creative genius is that he has, Roger Thomas has transformed Las Vegas with it."
Neither Wynn nor his wife, Elaine (the couple filed for divorce on March 5), is comfortable identifying that sensibility as specifically gay, but both date Thomas's creative blossoming directly to the mid 1990s, when, after two marriages and four engagements to women, he came out of the closet at 45. Now 57, he says today that he could no longer hide his same-sex desires -- from himself or others -- after developing an intense infatuation with a male business associate.
Shortly after he came out, three of his brothers staged an intervention, forcing Thomas into treatment for alcoholism. "The minute he was ready to deal with those things, that liberated him," says Elaine, a Wynn Resorts board member who is widely credited as a key player in her husband's visionary success. "It was like watching a dove come out. It freed his spirit."
Or, to hear Thomas put it: "Authenticity begets authenticity. My work matured really quickly when I was all of a sudden able to be who I really was. That's what creates really great work. I don't know that I didn't occasionally temper ideas or concepts I had for fear that they would look too gay, whatever that is," he says referring to his work at the Mirage and Treasure Island hotels. "È'f;'That's a little out there, that's a little fey, maybe I won't do that, maybe I'll butch that one up.' I think I might have done that."
There was no grand announcement of his sexuality. In fact, neither the Wynns nor Thomas can even remember exactly how he let it be known. As for his alcohol recovery, Thomas recalls being ensconced at Scripps McDonald Center for his treatment when a note came in from the Wynns: "Don't worry about your office. There will always be another project, there will only be one of you. Take care of yourself."
Roger was actually the second Thomas to transform Las Vegas. The first was his father, E. Parry Thomas, patriarch of one of the many old-line Mormon families who moved to the city after World War II. The elder Thomas opened a bank branch and then became the only banker willing to lend capital to casinos, taking some repayments in shares of the business and then becoming very rich as the city exploded.
By the early 1970s, Thomas had befriended a young casino executive named Steve Wynn; Thomas helped finance Wynn's Golden Nugget hotel. The two families owned homes in the ski town of Sun Valley, Idaho, where they spent Christmases together, and Parry Thomas often referred to Wynn, whose own father had died when he was 21, as his fifth son.
Young Roger was always a Thomas of a different feather. While his siblings took to the family business of banking and two of his brothers became bishops in the Mormon Church, Roger curled up at a young age with his mother's Vogue magazines and spent much of his time sketching. "I was very prone to costume," he says. "I was phenomenally flamboyant. I'd come out with five scarves tied around my neck."
Yet it was his rambunctious, defiant nature that confounded his parents more than his evident effeminacy, which he says was not spoken of. As a teen, he was arrested for drug use and warned by a judge that he was ruining his life. "I told him he was wrong, that I was an artist and that this was simply one of the credentials I would need in the world to be an artist," Thomas says. "He suggested at the end of my lecture that I might want to leave the state because if I got into any further trouble, he was going to make it very hard for me."
He did. Thomas left the following January for Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, a small boarding high school "that didn't have a football team but had two symphony orchestras." He felt nurtured and valued there and would go on to earn an art history degree from Tufts University.
During college Thomas began tapping his family's connections to break into the design universe. The Thomases summered in Newport Beach, Calif., so Parry Thomas arranged for his son to work in the Beverly Hills office of Yates Silverman, then the go-to design house for Vegas casinos and banks. Roger showed immediate flair, taking small assignments like the ceiling of an elevator at the now-gone off-Strip Showboat hotel, which he designed in Victorian-style stained glass. He would spend seven years running the Las Vegas office of Yates Silverman before the Wynns cornered him in 1982 at a benefit for the Nevada Dance Theatre.
"So, what are you up to?" Elaine Wynn asked at the time.
He was designing penthouses for the Stardust Hotel-Casino and had recently redone his first casino, the now-shuttered Lady Luck, in a Saturday Night Fever motif. ("Thank God that's gone," he blanches today.)
Steve jumped in. "I'm working on Victoria Bay," he said. "Come design the rooms for me."
Victoria Bay was a planned megaresort that was never built, but it became the basis for the Mirage, which opened in 1989, and Thomas spent the intervening years designing the high-roller rooms at the Golden Nugget for Wynn, the first truly extravagant suites in the city. When Wynn started planning the Mirage, he put Thomas in charge of the rooms but found himself continuously unhappy with proposals from designers for other parts of the resort. "He'd say, 'Nah, Roger can do better than that,' so I was assigned the coffee shop, the buffet, the meeting rooms, and the spa," Thomas recalls.
From then on he was the artist who filled in the details of Wynn's broad brushstrokes. The wildly successful Mirage sparked a building boom on the Strip and within the company, and it begat the pirate-themed Treasure Island, Wynn's 1993 play for the mid-market. Those were warm-up acts for Bellagio, the Italian-inspired resort with the famous dancing fountains, which was in turn a precursor to Wynn Las Vegas and now Encore.
One week before the 2,000-room curved bronze tower of Encore opened in December, Roger Thomas wore a pink hard hat with the name wynn emblazoned in clear rhinestones across the front. He stood outside with a crew of burly workmen trying to determine the precise positioning for a trio of 10-foot pale-green urns that stand inside a window at the front of the resort's lobby. "I just painted these yesterday-what do you think?" he asked flippantly.
You think the obvious thought: How does the head of design for a multibillion-dollar resort, a man responsible for the health of every flower, the placement of every bit of artwork, the resolution of a thousand little problems a minute, have the time to paint flowers and Greek mythological figures on some pottery just days before an opening?
"I was crazy nuts," he says weeks later, a grin pushing up the purple glasses on his craggy face, "but I needed a focal point there and I couldn't go out to buy it. It gave me was time to decompress and solve those problems."
Perhaps, but it also reflects the extent to which one man is so involved in the details of a building. He's caught moving various art objects to the precise spaces on tables where he wants them. "Most of the housekeeping crew, I've trained them and gone over it, and we've done photographs, but it's very difficult," he says, exasperated. "So I walk through the hotel all the time rearranging accessories."
Even more startling, though, is that Thomas has a story to go along with each of those accessories and design choices, right down to the laurel branches around that obscure corridor window. He explains, "I do that so that on your eighth trip through, there's something new you can discover. There are components of mystery in all my interiors."
To that end, Thomas spends his life traveling the globe spending Wynn's money, buying this eclectic pottery or those antique sconces or that unusually colored fabric and stowing it in the Vegas warehouse until there's an opportunity to deploy it. His indefatigable pace and encyclopedic knowledge of art, art history, and design are impressive. Elaine Wynn tried to keep up on a trip to Chicago a few years ago when they were seeking art for the Wynn Las Vegas rooms. "We started very early and we're going through various galleries, and everything we looked at, he could comment on," she recalls. "'This looks like such and such,' he'd say, and then I'd have to ask, 'What was such and such?'È'f;" Inspirations can strike at any time and can bubble up from long-ago memories. The 25-foot drapery with hand-sewn roses that forms the backdrop for the dramatic sunken dining room at the Alex restaurant in Wynn sprang, for instance, from a memory of a Balenciaga ball gown Thomas saw in a Vogue more than four decades earlier, when he was 9.
One place from which Thomas does not get ideas, however, is other casinos. "I don't have any expectations of learning anything there," says Thomas, who in 2007 was included on Architectural Digest 's list of the world's top 100 designers. "I am specifically not wanting to be influenced by that stuff. I don't want it to pop up in my work. My learning takes place in museums, on walks in parks, in really great pieces of architecture."
A rowdy group of college-age men bounces by Thomas in the Encore casino just as he is explaining the process that produces the deep red glass of the room's chandeliers. They're the sort of fellows for whom Las Vegas was originally built, the kind who wouldn't notice a laurel branch adorning a window or the fact that the butterflies in the carpet represent not only the metamorphosis of lowly caterpillars into beautiful creatures but also, to Thomas, the transformation of sticks, glue, and wool into the beauty of a designed interior.
Far from being insulted by the lack of appreciation, Thomas watches them with a sense that he has pulled off something of a subversive victory for gays. "They reward my designs by laying down money, by using it to impress their girlfriends," he says. "They gain status from what I do; they gain pleasure whether they realize it or not. I don't have to be in their face about it."
Well, sometimes he does. He's a largely beloved figure even among the construction crews he bosses around, but in one famous instance, a worker arguing with Thomas on a job site muttered the word "faggot" as Thomas walked away. The designer swiveled on his feet, marched back up to the offender, and barked a line that would've made an Army drill sergeant proud: "That's Mr. Faggot to you." "He just said, 'Yes, sir,' very meekly," says Thomas, who could have had the man fired but didn't. "He wasn't used to anybody coming back at him with that kind of authority."
Thomas didn't need to school the Wynns on gay sensitivity. The couple are friends with the likes of David Geffen and Sandy Gallin. But after Steve Wynn asked his executives to donate to the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004, Thomas leveraged the favor by urging Wynn to provide domestic-partner benefits for the company's employees.
Wynn and Thomas seem to have a comfortable gay-straight patter. Thomas will mock his boss when they disagree by saying, "I know you feel that way because you're straight. You can't help it. You were born that way, and nobody's perfect." For Wynn's part, on a pre-opening tour of Encore, the mogul pointed out female nude figures ensconced in gold along the walls of the nightclub XS. When asked whose idea that was, Wynn cracked, "Roger Thomas, if ya can believe that!"
While thomas has layered explanations for the Encore butterfly motif, his husband, fellow interior designer Arthur Libera, sees yet another. With the completion of Encore, Thomas concludes his service with the Wynns in June, turning over the pink hard hat to another gay designer, Jerry Beale, to focus on developing his furnishings line. It's not an unexpected decision -- he's been commuting to the home he and Libera share in Marin County, Calif., weekly for years -- and he's been itching to live somewhere other than Vegas.
"He's becoming the butterfly of many colors," says Libera, who married Thomas in 2005 in the first wedding to take place in the Wynn Las Vegas chapel. The pair were also wed in California last fall prior to the passage of Proposition 8. "He's leaving to be on his own to take full recognition of his own work."
The Wynns, supportive as they are, can't believe he'll soon be gone.
"I'm in denial," Elaine Wynn says. "Roger is our brother. It's right for him at this stage of his life to move on to whatever it is he wants to do now. It was divine intervention the day Roger came into our professional life. Roger got an opportunity to grow and make an extraordinary name for himself in projects that just don't exist anywhere else in the world. He was given multiple canvases to work on. It was very Medici-like."


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Genetic and Physical Study of Childhood Nerve and Muscle Disorders
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Know the risks and potential benefits of clinical studies and talk to your health care provider before participating. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01568658
Recruitment Status : Recruiting
First Posted : April 2, 2012
Last Update Posted : May 1, 2020
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- No Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
- Some nerve and muscle disorders that start early in life (before age 25), like some forms of muscular dystrophy, can run in families. However, the genetic causes of these disorders are not known. Also, doctors do not fully understand how symptoms of these disorders change over time. Researchers want to learn more about genetic nerve and muscle disorders that start in childhood by studying affected people and their family members, as well as healthy volunteers.
- To better understand nerve and muscle disorders that start early in life and run in families.
- Individuals at least 4 weeks old with childhood-onset muscular and nerve disorders, including those who have a later onset of a disorder that typically has childhood onset.
- Affected and unaffected family members of the individuals with muscular and nerve disorders.
- Healthy volunteers at least 4 weeks old with no nerve or muscle disorders.
- Participants will be screened with a physical exam and medical history. Genetic information will be collected from blood, saliva, cheek swab, or skin samples. Urine samples may also be collected.
- Healthy volunteers and unaffected family members will have imaging studies of the muscles. These studies will include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound scans. Results will be compared with those from the affected participants.
- All participants with nerve and muscle disorders will have multiple tests, including the following:
- Imaging studies of the muscles, including ultrasound and MRI scans.
- Imaging studies of the bones, such as x-rays and DEXA scans.
- Heart and lung function tests.
- Eye exams.
- Nerve and muscle electrical activity tests and biopsies.
- Video and photo image collection of affected muscles.
- Speech, language, and swallowing evaluation.
- Lumbar puncture to collect spinal fluid for study.
- Tests of movement, attention, thinking, and coordination.
- Participants with nerve and muscle disorders will return to the Clinical Center every year. They will repeat the tests and studies at these visits.
|Condition or disease
|Muscular Dystrophies Muscle Myopathies Hereditary Spastic Paraplegias Inherited Neuropathies Inherited Neuromuscular Conditions
To diagnose and elucidate the underlying disease mechanism in patients with neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders with congenital or pediatric onset (phase 1 of the protocol) and to study the natural history and mechanism of disease in neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders of childhood (phase 2 of the protocol).
Study population:
Patients with childhood onset neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders, their affected and unaffected family members, and healthy volunteers. Patients with later onset of a disorder that is known to typically have childhood onset will be included as well.
Diagnostic and prospective longitudinal natural history study.
Outcome Measures:
Diagnose and characterize patients with neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders with congenital or pediatric onset and study the natural history and underlying disease mechanism. In the characterized patient population identify and develop effective outcome measures for use in future clinical trials, including applicable motor scales, quality of life scales, biomarkers from blood and urine, imaging studies, and pulmonary function tests.
|Study Type :
|Estimated Enrollment :
|5650 participants
|Observational Model:
|Time Perspective:
|Official Title:
|Clinical and Molecular Manifestations of Neuromuscular and Neurogenetic Disorders of Childhood
|Actual Study Start Date :
|March 20, 2012
Affected probands
Affected probands over age 4 weeks and onwards with known or suspected inherited neurological disorders of childhood onset
Healthy volunteers
Healthy volunteers will be recruited for the imaging procedures in order to establish baseline and age-range matched data on the healthy, maturing muscle, spinal cord volume and dynamic breathing
Single patient on Idebenone
Single patient on IND expanded access of Idebenone
Unaffected family members
Families of affected probands with known or suspected inherited neurological disorders of childhood onset
- Diagnose and characterize patients with neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders with congenital or pediatric onset and study the natural history and underlying disease mechanism. [ Time Frame: Ongoing ]
- In the characterized patient population identify and develop effective outcome measures for use in future clinical trials, including applicable motor scales, quality of life scales, biomarkers from blood and urine, imaging studies, and pulmonary... [ Time Frame: Ongoing ]
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|Child, Adult, Older Adult
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
|Sampling Method:
|Non-Probability Sample
Probands inclusion criteria Phase 1:
- Aged 4 weeks and older
Documentation of a personal history of a childhood-onset, hereditary/familial, neurological disorder or later onset of a disease that more commonly has childhood onset. Acceptable documentation includes evaluation through any or all of the following evaluations done prior to enrollment.
- Medical history, including family history information
- Physical examination
- Muscle, nerve, or skin biopsy
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
- Electromyography (EMG)
- Nerve conduction study (NCS)
- Electroencephalogram (EEG)
- Muscle ultrasound
- Genetic, metabolic, or other laboratory testing such as increased serum Creatine Kinase (CK) and abnormal serum lactate/pyruvate ratio.
Probands inclusion criteria Phase 2:
- Aged 4 weeks and older
- Documentation of a defined childhood onset neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders through phase 1 testing.
Exclusion criteria for probands Phase 1:
- Individuals who are unable or unwilling to be examined.
- Minors who do not have a parent or guardian able to provide informed consent.
- Adults seen offsite who are unable to provide their own consent.
Exclusion criteria for probands Phase 2:
- Individuals who are unable or unwilling to be examined.
- Adults who are unable to provide their own consent and who have not previously appointed an individual with Durable Power of Attorney (DPA) or who are unable to appoint a DPA or guardian.
- Minors who do not have a parent or guardian able to provide informed consent.
- Adults seen offsite who are unable to provide their own consent.
Unaffected Family members - Inclusion Criteria:
- Unaffected family members must be related by blood to a proband enrolled in the study. Biological relations may include first (parent or sibling), second (grandparents, aunts, uncles, half siblings) and third degree relatives (cousins).
- Age 4 weeks and older.
Unaffected Family members - Exclusion Criteria:
- Individuals whom are unable or unwilling to be examined.
- Family members who are showing symptoms of the familial neurogenetic or neuromuscular condition (these may be enrolled as probands).
- Neonates.
- Adults who are unable to provide their own consent.
Healthy Volunteers - Inclusion Criteria:
- Must be unaffected by a neurological condition.
- Willing and able to comply with all protocol requirements and procedures, including MRI without sedation and without contrast.
- Able to give informed assent and parent(s)/legal guardian to give informed consent in writing signed by the subject and/or parent(s)/legal guardian.
Healthy Volunteers - Exclusion Criteria:
- Healthy volunteers who have metal objects in their body that are not MRI-safe. These include the following objects: 1) pacemakers or other implanted electrical devices; 2) brain stimulators; 3) some types of dental implants; 4) aneurysm clips (metal clips on the wall of a large artery); 5) metallic prostheses (including metal pins and rods, heart valves, and cochlear implants; 6) implanted delivery pump; 7) permanent eye liner; or 8) shrapnel fragments.
- Healthy volunteers who have a fear of closed spaces.
- Neonates.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT01568658
|Contact: Sandra Donkervoort
|(301) 496-0272
|Contact: Carsten G Bonnemann, M.D.
|(301) 594-5496
|United States, Maryland
|National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, 9000 Rockville Pike
|Bethesda, Maryland, United States, 20892
|Contact: For more information at the NIH Clinical Center contact Office of Patient Recruitment (OPR) 800-411-1222 ext TTY8664111010 firstname.lastname@example.com
|Principal Investigator:
|Carsten G Bonnemann, M.D.
|National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
|Responsible Party:
|National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|First Posted:
|April 2, 2012 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|May 1, 2020
|Last Verified:
|April 28, 2020
Hereditary Myopathies
Muscular Dystrophy
Spastic Paraplegia, Hereditary
Hereditary Sensory and Motor Neuropathy
Muscular Dystrophies
Muscular Diseases
Muscular Disorders, Atrophic
Musculoskeletal Diseases
Neuromuscular Diseases
Nervous System Diseases
Genetic Diseases, Inborn
Neurologic Manifestations
Nervous System Malformations
Heredodegenerative Disorders, Nervous System
Neurodegenerative Diseases
Peripheral Nervous System Diseases
Congenital Abnormalities


text:
Call for Media: First cosmology results from ESA's Planck mission
Media representatives are invited to a briefing on the first cosmology data release from ESA's Planck mission. The new results include Planck's first all-sky map of the cosmic microwave background.
The media briefing is being organised by the European Space Agency at Headquarters, 8-10 rue Mario Nikis in Paris, on 21 March 2013, 10:00–12:00 CET. Doors open at 09:30 CET.
There will be an additional session in the afternoon, 14:00–15:45 CET, for the scientific community and science journalists.
Planck was launched in May 2009 and its first all-sky image, including emissions from our own Milky Way galaxy, was presented in July 2010. The first scientific dataset was released in January 2011.
After years of painstaking work, scientists have now been able to remove the bright foreground emissions that lie between us and the Universe's first light. This light was imprinted on the sky when the Universe was just 380 000 years old and seen today as the cosmic microwave background.
Planck's map of the cosmic microwave background over the whole sky is the best ever made. By analysing it in detail, scientists have made important findings about the composition and evolution of the Universe from its birth to the present day and beyond. These results will be presented at the media briefing.
Media representatives wishing to attend the event are requested to register at http://www.esa.int/media-event-planck-2013
Planck's Cosmic Microwave Background map Media Briefing, 21 March 2013
ESA Headquarters
8–10 rue Mario Nikis
75738 Paris Cedex 15
Room A
9:30 Doors open
10:00 Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General
Planck's Cosmic Microwave Background map
10:15 George Efstathiou, Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge
Cosmological results derived from Planck's Cosmic Microwave Background map
10:45 Questions & Answers
Opportunity for individual interviews
12:00 End of programme
The briefing will be broadcast on the ESA portal at www.esa.int.
The science briefing in the afternoon will be broadcast at the ESA Space Science Portal at www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science.
For further information, please contact:
ESA Media Relations Office
Email: email@example.com
Tel: +33 1 53 69 72 99
Fax: +33 1 53 69 76 90


text:
Mustang MonthlyHow To Drivetrain
Installing a Steeda Tri-Ax Shifter
Step by step guide for Installing a Steeda Tri-Ax Shifter
Many people will tell you there's no greater connection between a driver and their car than a manual transmission. Certainly, driving a "stick" can be fun during a track day, on a twisty mountain road, or even at the drag strip. We'd say daily driving a manual trans would be a chore, but with today's clutch technology you rarely have the dreaded left leg work-out of decades past. We can thank clutch technology like twin discs, enhanced friction surfaces, new clutch spring designs, and of course hydraulic clutch actuation. These all work together to make modern clutch pedal feel light and precise. We almost welcome a traffic jam in a modern manual trans Mustang—almost.
Of course, the connection between your right hand and the transmission is just as important as that of your left foot and the clutch. Trying to shift a transmission with a rubbery shifter is just asking for missed gears, grinding gears, or worse. The direct shift transmissions from the '04 and older late-model Mustangs had simple shifters that bolted directly to the top of the transmission's tailshaft housing with four bolts. A little console disassembly and a little alone time with a socket set and you could have more precise shifting in less than an hour.
Starting with the '05 Mustang, Ford began installing a "remote shifter" setup that actually installed the shifter from the underside of the floor pan/trans tunnel and used a remote rod/linkage to change gears on the transmission. For the '11 Mustang, Ford took a hybrid approach to the new Getrag MT-82 six-speed. While the Getrag is still a remotely shifted trans, the shifter uses a lower base assembly bolted to the trans tunnel with a bolt-on shifter assembly akin to the older direct shift transmissions. What this means is while you still have some under-car work to do for access, the main shifter removal happens inside the car.
From the early Fox Mustangs with their huge rubber isolator between the shifter stick and base to the new '11-'12 models, every stock Mustang we've ever rowed through the gears has felt vague and limp in our shifter hand. While for some it may be a matter of preference, a higher tension shift bias spring, cleaner gate, shorter throw, and stiffer shifter bushings (or eliminating them all together) has always given us a much more connected driving experience with faster shifting and no missed gears. For our subject '11 GT, the stock shifter felt like all the others to us, just begging for an improvement.
The engineers at Steeda Autosports know exactly what we're talking about and over the years have designed a Steeda Tri-Ax shifter for every manual transmission ever fitted to the Mustang, including aftermarket Tremec models as well. So it was a no-brainer for us to pick up the phone and order the latest Tri-Ax for the '11-'12 six-speed, designed with a 20 percent shorter throw while maintaining the stock reverse lockout system. Steeda even provides a stiffer reverse lockout spring if you're one of the many who constantly hit Reverse trying to engage First gear. We also chose to upgrade to Steeda's shifter base bushing kit with billet mounting bracket and high durometer bushing.
No matter what year late-model Mustang you have, upgrading the shifter will certainly enhance your driving enjoyment and Steeda can help make it happen.


text: JP1 Remotes :: View topic - ARRX18G xSight: New Activity JP1 Remotes FAQ Search 7 Days Memberlist Usergroups Register Profile Log in to check your private messages Log in File Section File Search Lookup Tool Wiki ARRX18G xSight: New Activity JP1 Remotes Forum Index -> Nevo and Xsight Remotes View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message jriker1Joined: 18 Jun 2017Posts: 38 Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 8:51 am Post subject: ARRX18G xSight: New Activity I've managed to get my remote programmed with some devices, but a bit confused on RMIR how to program an activity. Always comes up with 9 items tied to an activity and assuming each one is a step in the turn on process. So say I click New Activity and I just want to turn the TV on and have it on the regular TV antenna. By default I have numbers 1 - 9 all saying Toshiba LCD device. Second example, if I want to turn on my TV and my DVR and switch the TV to HDML 1 how would I do that? Hoping if I can understand these two it will help with other options I need to set. For reference I have an ARRX18G xSight guess touch compatible unit. Thanks. JR Back to top The RobmanSite OwnerJoined: 01 Aug 2003Posts: 19807Location: Chicago, IL Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 10:03 am Post subject: One of the Xsight experts will help you with your specific questions, but I just wanted to make sure that you've seen the wiki article for this remote: http://www.hifi-remote.com/wiki/index.php?title=Getting_started_with_Xsight_and_Nevo Also, here's a guide to RMIR... Applies to all remotes: http://www.hifi-remote.com/wiki/index.php?title=JP1_-_Just_How_Easy_Is_It%3F_-_RM-IR_Version Xsight specific features: http://www.hifi-remote.com/wiki/index.php?title=JP1_-_Just_How_Easy_Is_It%3F_-_RM-IR_Version#Remote_Specific_Features_________________Rob www.hifi-remote.com Please don't PM me with remote questions, post them in the forums so all the experts can help!Last edited by The Robman on Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:51 am; edited 1 time in total Back to top mdavejExpertJoined: 08 Oct 2003Posts: 4132 Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:15 am Post subject: No, those are not steps. Those are simply the devices each button group controls. In example 1, leave all 9 set to your TV device. Edit the Activity Macro and add steps to turn on the TV and pick the Antenna input. In example 2, you'll probably want all groups except 1, 4 and 9 assigned to your DVR. Your macro would turn on the TV and switch to HDMI 1. DVRs usually stay on 24x7, so no need to turn it on or off. I highly recommend you load one of our Toshiba devices from the file section. It will have specific commands for power on, power off, HDMI 1 and Antenna that you can use in your macros. http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=12061 Activity macros are edited the same way as regular macros, described earlier in the above wiki. You should read through all of it before you start. Here's an example of a fully programmed remote with many activities which may help: http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload.php?action=file&file_id=13513 Back to top jriker1Joined: 18 Jun 2017Posts: 38 Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:03 pm Post subject: Excellent. Thanks I'm going to spend some time reading thru things. One question at first glance of the fully programmed remote example. For functions like Video 5 HDMI 1, whatever "Video 5" means, how are those functions captured? As a rule you have one button on the remote called "Input". And cycling thru that button takes you to the correct input however obviously that cycling thru could work or not work depending on what input you were on in the first place. Thanks. JR Back to top mdavejExpertJoined: 08 Oct 2003Posts: 4132 Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:33 pm Post subject: "Video 5" in my case is simply how the input was labeled on my TV screen, so I made it match. The port on the back of my TV corresponding to Video 5 was labeled HDMI 1, so I kept both in my description. You can name yours whatever makes the most sense to you. If "DVR Input" makes more sense to you, use that instead of "HDMI 1" for the label. I didn't capture any commands whatsoever. Everything came from files on this site. You should rarely have to capture any commands. Forget about the Input button. You'll never use that in your macros. Discrete HDMI 1, HDMI 2, ANT, etc. each go directly to that specific input every time no matter what the last input was. No cycling required. Same story for Power. That's a toggle which depends on the previous state. You'll use Power On and Power Off instead. Power On turns the TV on every time no matter what. If the TV is already On, nothing happens. Power Off only turns it off, no matter how many times you send that command. If the TV is already Off, nothing happens. Access to these special discrete functions that aren't found on the original remote is what makes macros on these remotes to useful and powerful. You may notice one other little trick I use, which is redundant discrete input commands. For example, my TV takes about 12 seconds to warm up before it will respond to any commands. So, if I want to go to HDMI3, my macro would be: TV Power On TV HDMI3 (in case TV was already on, it switches to HDMI3 immediately) Wait 12 seconds (configurable delay is built into the step) TV HDMI3 (in case TV was off and ignored the previous HDMI 3 command) In my file I also have an AVR to deal with and several other devices that I turn off when going from one activity to the next. You can ignore those parts. Back to top jriker1Joined: 18 Jun 2017Posts: 38 Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:01 pm Post subject: Thanks for the info. I may surprise you when it comes to capturing my own commands. The TV in question I found one of your profiles for so guessing that will be good. The DVR there isn't one. Well one that may work but doesn't have any discrete functions. And my media player forget it. Below is my devices: TV: Toshiba 29L1350U (Toshiba CT-90325) DVR: Magnavox HD DVR/HDD 500GB ATSC Tuner (Magnavox NC003) Media: Micca Speck G2 ( micca spec-i g2) In parenthesis is the remote model. Note my DVR is turned off as it runs on a timer for when it has to turn on and record. So if I want to use the power button to turn everything on and off automatically what would I use for power? The standard power setting as the discrete would be if you want to manually have buttons for turning things on and off correct? OK, now hopefully finding time to read the links. Thanks. JR Back to top mdavejExpertJoined: 08 Oct 2003Posts: 4132 Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:05 pm Post subject: Rob tried to drop you a hint on the Micca, but you didn't pick up on it (fill out the questionaire in the code search sticky). Luckily we can use your awesome capture skills to make a device upgrade file. All Mags of this vintage use the same codes and include discretes. Pick one. I bet one of the 533's will do the trick. You don't use the power button to turn everything off, you make a Master Off activity macro (mine is Good Night). Leave Power toggle assigned to the power button of each device. Put discrete on and off on the screen as you typically will only use those in macros. Back to top jriker1Joined: 18 Jun 2017Posts: 38 Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:29 pm Post subject: Thanks. Are there multiple 533's out there? I downloaded one, the only one I found, and some of the commands did not function so had to manually redo them with my ARRX18G remote. Perhaps there are other captures and I'm missing it. Thanks. JR Back to top mdavejExpertJoined: 08 Oct 2003Posts: 4132 Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:14 pm Post subject: I thought my old Magnavox had discretes, but I must be mistaken. I can't find any. Maybe PLAY would work as discrete on. Our files aren't captures. They're UEI format which is much more compact and correct than captures. If you post your RMIR file with your Micca learns, we can convert it to a device upgrade file. Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First JP1 Remotes Forum Index -> Nevo and Xsight Remotes All times are GMT - 5 Hours Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum General----------------Non-JP1Code SearchCode Search (Closed)Discrete CodesSlingbox JP1 Forums----------------Nevo and Xsight RemotesJP1 - New Remotes & RDFsJP1 - BeginnersJP1 - General ForumJP1 - Protocol DecodesJP1 - ExtendersJP1 - SoftwareJP1 - KeyboardsJP1 - Hardware Miscellaneous----------------X10 and Home AutomationElectronics RepairMarket PlaceMarket Place ArchiveWeb Site IssuesReplayTVHall of Shame (and other funny stuff) You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group


text:
Scotland v Italy, February 9
Ford and Harley start for Scotland
ESPN Staff
February 5, 2013
Ross Ford is back at hooker for Scotland © PA Photos
Scotland have made two changes ahead of their match with Italy on Saturday with hooker Ross Ford and flanker Rob Harley both getting the nod.
Scotland fell to England 38-18 on Saturday but put in an improved showing compared to their autumn Test form which saw them lose all three of their matches, including a loss to Tonga. And with Italy lying in wait on Saturday, who will be buoyed by their memorable win over France on Sunday, interim coach Scott Johnson has opted to make two changes to the side.
Ross Ford, who was dropped for the match with England, gets the nod at hooker in place of Dougie Hall who is named among the replacements. Hall faces a late fitness test with Scotland monitoring a knee injury he sustained against England so Pat MacArthur is also named among the replacements with one dropping out prior to the weekend's match.
And Johnson has also opted to give Harley the nod. He has just one substitute appearance to his name for Scotland, which came against Samoa on their summer tour, but he is named in the starting XV at the expense of the injured Alasdair Strokosch who is potentially out for the rest of the Six Nations after he suffered a suspected fractured eye socket against England.
"I had the pleasure of working with Robert on our tour last summer," Johnson said of Harley. "He's big and aggressive and he's been knocking on the door for selection for a wee while. He deserves this chance as a reward for his club form.
"Italy's victory against France in Rome was well-deserved and certainly didn't surprise us. It will be a true Test match this weekend and it would be great to have a big vocal Murrayfield crowd supporting the boys this weekend."
There were calls from some for Stuart Hogg to move into the midfield against Italy after he shone against England, but Johnson has kept the Glasgow Warriors man at fullback for Saturday's match.
Scotland: Stuart Hogg, Sean Maitland, Sean Lamont, Matt Scott, Tim Visser, Ruaridh Jackson, Greig Laidlaw; Ryan Grant, Ross Ford, Euan Murray, Richie Gray, Jim Hamilton, Rob Harley, Kelly Brown, Johnnie Beattie
Replacements: Dougie Hall or Pat MacArthur, Moray Low, Geoff Cross, Alastair Kellock, David Denton, Henry Pyrgos, Duncan Weir, Max Evans
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Communication error please reload the page.


text:
Measures approx 3" tall. Now you can finally expand your collection, or start a whole new diorama! Goes great with Standard or G gauge model railroads! Colors shipped are the same as those shown. All Barclay figures are painted with a gloss enamel finish for that classic "tinplate" look. If you prefer a more realistic finish, just spray with "Dul Cote", which is available at any hobby shop. Originals of this figure, which were made by Manoil ca 1941, are hard to find, and often selling for $50 or more!
SKU: 6035a